


Running With Wolves

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: The Travel Collection: Drabbles, Snippets, and Supershorts [23]
Category: Underworld (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, GFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-12 18:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Sonja escapes and lives, while Lucian is kept imprisoned in an attempt by Viktor to control her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Daughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the story the rest had all been written around. It's unfinished, and likely not to _be_ finished, so I thought I'd just post it so the rest had some context.

It is one against the other he played, using Sonja to lure Lucian back, burning the passages to force them where he wanted them to come up. Tried to use the lycan's life to control his daughter when she fought even against him, only to find she was fighting not to defeat him, not to save Lucian, but to run, to escape. To leave and take refuge among the lycans who've risen against him.

Lucian was given his life so Viktor would not lose what little hold he had left over his daughter, but he could not remain where the others could free him. It was time to build another prison, this one to keep something far more dangerous than the beast that was William. Careful locks and secrets in the making that only he would know, in the end, the craftsman who designed it slain to protect what Viktor had commissioned.

Now, all he had to do was wait for Sonja to rescue her beloved lycan, as he had done for her. The rest would take care of itself.

* * *

"Viktor will kill him." Sonja stood at the edge of the shadows, looking out at the daylight that could kill her, and for now, protected her. Knowing that beyond those trees was the fortress she'd once called home, and would never again think as such. Only as a prison and a death trap waiting for her to come close enough for it to close around her. "If he has not done so already."

"Death Dealers should have followed you. They haven't." Raze's deep voice came from outside the small shelter, the large lycan protecting her from others who would kill her simply because they feared her. Her, and what she could bring down on them simply by being there.

She had to allow that he was right, in that much at least, but the hope that Lucian was alive would only make the grief later harder to bear. Perhaps enough to give her the strength to walk into the sun, and she could not risk the life growing inside her simply for the hope that she would see her beloved again.

"They will hunt for me just as much as they will hunt for you. We cannot remain here." Where they would go - where she would go, if she had to go alone - she didn't know yet, only that she could not remain here. Too exposed, and too close to her father's fortress.

"We'll move on when I say so." Unconcerned for her wish to leave as soon as the sun set, and she could travel. "Not tonight."

"I cannot remain here, where the Death Dealers can catch up with me. I would rather they didn't catch up with any of you, either." She shifted, leaning against the wall that blocked the sun. "I didn't help Lucian, all of you, to escape, only to have everyone recaptured. It's bad enough Viktor has taken Lucian." Trying to convince Raze they had to move, had to travel.

"There's nowhere to go that's any safer."

"Not safe yet. But there are places which can be made safer than this." Of that much, she was certain. That she could find it, she was uncertain, but if she did, the lycans would be able to make it safe. Fortify it and make it a fortress to stand against her father and the Council.

"Until we find one, we'll stay here. You'll stay as well."

"Why should I?" Sonja tilted her head back against the wall, closing her eyes as she felt her exhaustion start to catch up with her. "Why not leave when the sun sets?"

"If Lucian's dead, it's for you." A challenge was in his voice, daring her to make it all in vain. To make Lucian's sacrifice worthless, meaningless, by getting herself killed because she was on her own, for all that she could protect herself.

"So long as you're looking for some place we can make safer, I will stay."

* * *

A mountain lay between the estate she and the lycans rebuilt as a fortress, and the valley which her father's fortress overlooked. Not enough to protect them, but enough to shield them with its bulk from the worst of his wrath, for now. A wrath that would be tempered when he slept, and Amelia was woken, but Sonja doubted she would be safe even then.

Her, or the son she bore before the fortress was finished, and suckled blood off her fingers as she watched the walls rise high around them, frustrated by her inability to help. Others created the weapons to defend them, the walls to protect them, and all she could do was care for her son. Lucian's son, the miracle that was all she had left to hold of him, no matter what message her father sent.

The lycans had been glad to learn Lucian was alive, and she heard them speak of returning to free him, but she would not remain and listen when talk of that began. Could not give herself the chance to hope. Even when the attempts brought other lycans back, those who had seen the prison they said Viktor built for Lucian. To keep him locked away where Viktor would not have to worry he would be freed while he slept.

No, that she would only believe if they brought Lucian out alive. And if that meant she hoped he was truly alive, she would not admit it it to herself.

* * *

Swimming the river had been a cold necessity when she saw her brother's wife sprawled dead on the bank next to the barge and one of her twin nieces held in the grip of a monster wearing a human face. There was more than one point on the bank to slip into the black water, her shift torn to create a tether for the niece her brother had shoved into her arms earlier.

The small girl shivered, clinging to her as they stayed close to the river bank, far downstream from the home she could no longer see. Running from the monsters, and hoping whatever they were, they had not noticed that two of their prey had escaped.

Selene fought a shiver of her own, the breeze of their flight cutting through her own wet shift like a knife. She had to find someplace safe enough to rest, away from the chill of the autumn night, but she knew there was little of human refuge near her brother's home. Only an estate that had been taken by the creatures who filled the night with eerie cries when the moon was full, and that she did not think of as safe.

Behind her, the beat of horses' hooves against the ground reached her ears, and she pressed her niece's face into her shoulder to muffle the sob of fear, stumbling and sliding toward the river once more. The water had protected them before, cold and swift as it ran, and better to risk its dangers than the one that came through the night behind them.

The roar of something large rent the night, and Selene couldn't keep the scream from escaping her little niece, couldn't help her own breathless yelp of fear. Her foot slid from under her on the slippery rocks, sending her tumbling backwards to land on her back, and drove the air from her lungs. Scrambling down the bank further, she slipped into the water, murmuring a reassurance to her niece when the girl whimpered at the cold.

She stayed near the bank, where the water was shallow enough to walk instead of swim, constantly darting glances at the bank for any sign of those that chased them. Or whatever it was that had roared, some predator that she doubted would have the mercy to leave them to flee once it had killed the intruder into its domain.

Only when she feared she would not be able to haul them out of the river if she walked further in the icy water did she take the chance, climbing out on a mossy patch of bank beneath the shelter of the trees.

"Are we going to die?" Ana's voice sounded almost loud in the quiet of the night, and Selene's heart pounded with a sudden rush of fear even as she tried to reassure her niece.  
   
"No. Not tonight. I promise." She drew Ana closer, cradling her as she continued to watch and listen. She knew the rest of her family was dead, Anton would have done everything he could to give them time to flee. At least she could give him that much peace, that one of his daughters would live. That she would live, and make sure Ana could be free of the threat from one or another of the creatures that roamed the night.  
   
The promise was enough for Ana to relax enough to sleep a little, curled as close as she could to Selene.  
 

* * *

   
She could not have had her eyes closed for long, merely long enough to wake to the deep voice of someone telling her this was no place to sleep. Selene curled her arms tighter around her niece, turning away from the voice before she'd even opened her eyes, not caring that it put her back to the man. Better for her back to bear the brunt of any cruelty, and not Ana.  
   
"I'm not going to hurt you."  
   
With the men she could see around her, just visible in the grey light before dawn, he wouldn't have to, and Selene didn't move. Keeping Ana beneath her, pressed against the ground where she would be safe, at least for now.  
   
"I don't believe you." She didn't even bother to look over her shoulder at him, watching the men at the edge of the clearing instead, gaze darting between them. Wishing there was even the slimmest chance she could get Ana safely free of there, and knowing there wasn't. Not even if they weren't either of those she feared, merely bandits, it would be bad enough.  
   
The man moved, her only certainty of that the sound of fabric shifting. His footsteps were noiseless as he came around her, where she could see him without leaving Ana unprotected. Her first impression was of a man as large as his voice would suggest, almost as dark as the night around them. Simply dressed, with a face she couldn't read.  
   
"You were running from the Death Dealers." He didn't make any promises as Selene had half been expecting. Simply told her what the monsters who had murdered her family were called. "Those who are still alive won't come back until the sun sets."  
   
"Why?" She kept her gaze fixed on the man crouched in front of her, knowing that even if he didn't hurt her himself, he was the most dangerous man there. It was in the way the others held back while he spoke with her, the way they watched him for cues. "Why would they not come back sooner?"  
   
"They're vampires. The sun would kill them." He shrugged, watching her as steadily as she watched him. Patient as he waited, though what for, beside that she trust him, she didn't know. Perhaps to harm them both, perhaps to offer them refuge that would be paid for in blood. She would not risk Ana's life to find out.  
   
"They'll find you. Keep hunting you until they've run you to the ground, if they can."

"Why would they even care?" Selene didn't understand why they'd attacked in the first place. Anton hadn't had much of value, and none that was valuable would be easily carried off. All he'd worried about was his family, with all the strangeness around them. "We have nothing left."

"You have your lives. And each other." He shrugged, a glint of sympathy in his eyes. "It's enough."

"Why do you care?" His lack of hostility was as confusing as the bits of information he had to provide, as meager as they were.

"They crossed the river to chase you down. A risk they wouldn't take for just anyone."

Selene could feel her face pale as she thought back to the roar from the night before. Something she could well imagine was a danger a grown man would not care to encounter, and she certainly did not.

"We won't hurt you." He repeated his earlier words, his gaze focussed on her face. Likely had noticed her pale, and thought she'd believed he'd threatened her. Perhaps even he had, if he were one of those at the fallen estate.

"Will you let us leave?" Selene nodded down the river without looking away from him. "Let us keep running?"

"I can't." He shook his head, standing after a moment. "This isn't a place for a woman and child alone. You'll be safe at the fortress."

Selene shook her head, her mouth going too dry to protest as he reached down to pick her up, one hand wrapped around her upper arm. Struggling to pull away, her other arm wrapped protectively around Ana, a scream struggling to escape her throat. She lashed out with her feet as one of the other men came to scoop up Ana, reaching for her niece even as the man holding her grabbed her other arm, holding her with unexpected care.

"Selene!" Ana fought as hard as Selene did, trying to launch herself out of the man's arms to Selene, screaming and clawing at exposed flesh. "Selene!"

"Ana! You let her go!" Selene stomped her feet down on the man's as hard as she could, hissing at the pain that went up her leg from the impact with his booted feet. "Let my niece go!"

The man didn't even appear to notice, shifting his grip to sling her over his shoulder, ignoring her attempts to hurt him, to force him to let her go. Doing his best to show a level of gentleness she didn't expect, and from what she could see of the man carrying her niece, he was doing the same. Following the example of the man who carried her, perhaps.

* * *

Sonja looked up when the doors of her chambers opened, one hand resting on the back of her son's chair as Raze came into the room. "You're late returning, Raze. I was concerned."

"We found survivors." Raze nodded his head in greeting, first to her, then to her son. "One of the children, and a woman. The Death Dealers crossed the river chasing them, none survived the experience."

"Why does that not surprise me?" Sonja smiled faintly, the expression soon fading. "You brought them back here."

"Yes. I left them in the care of Ibolya; she still remembers how to cook for human guests." Which made her unique, as few of them cared to remember how any more. The livestock were kept for their blood, rather than their flesh, and the fields grew only fodder for the cattle. "She has blankets to keep them warm. They have nothing but the clothes on their back, and each other."

"Bring them to me when they are rested and fed." Sonja didn't know why her father had sent the Death Dealers to raid the little human family that lived on the island in the river, but she was glad now that they'd thought to put lookouts there, a small post to house a few lycans. A runner to bring them news, and those there to engage the Death Dealers until others could arrive. "I wish to speak with the woman, especially. Perhaps she knows something of why my father desired to attack her home."

Raze nodded. "Her name is Selene, the girl is Ana. They both fight hard." There's a ghost of a smile on his face for a moment, a sense of approval that Sonja knows he doesn't bestow easily, even on himself.

"Thank you, Raze." Sonja gives him another brief smile, both thanks for the report, and a subtle dismissal. Silence fell over the room for a long moment before her son shifted in his chair, looking up at her.

"Can I go meet Ana?" There were no other children his age in the fortress, and few other children at all, so even one was noteworthy. From the reports from their guard post she knew the girl was of an age with her son, perhaps a year or so younger. "I will be very careful, I promise, mother."

"Let her eat and rest first, Alexej. She's just lost her family, and had a difficult journey." Sonja stroked his hair a moment, giving him a more genuine smile than those she'd given Raze. "When she has slept and eaten, Raze will bring her and Selene here. You can talk to Ana while I talk to Selene, if you would like."

"Can I show her my toys? And my books?" Alexej looked hopeful, and after a moment, Sonja nodded, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his head. "Thank you, mother."

Sonja smiled, stroking Alexej's hair a moment before she moved around the table to sit in the other chair. "For now, you have lessons to attend to."

"Yes, mother." Alexej made a face, but turned his attention back to the numbers etched into the wax tablet, focusing on learning the sums as he had been before Raze interrupted.

* * *

Selene followed the man - Raze, he'd been called by the woman who'd fed them - through the corridors, her niece balanced on her hip. Ana clung, her legs wrapped around Selene's waist, and arms around her neck as she buried her face into Selene's shoulder. They'd both been asked for by whoever it was that Raze answered to, though what such a person could have to do with a child like Ana, Selene wasn't certain.

"Wait here." Raze stopped them outside an ornately carved door, leaving them there as he stepped inside. His deep voice rumbling as he said something to whoever was inside. A higher-pitched voice answered, and the door opened again, Raze nodding for them to go in.

Selene hesitated before doing so, every muscle in her body tense with fear and worry. There's nothing she can do now, though, and at least they've provided her and Ana with a warm place to sleep and clothing to replace what they'd had to leave behind.

Inside the room, a woman sat in a chair with a boy standing next to her. Watching Selene with curiosity, turning away only long enough to nod a dismissal to Raze. The boy beside her shifted on his feet, looking up to her a moment, a pleading expression on his face. For what, Selene wasn't certain, though here, she didn't trust even a child.

"Alexej would like to share his books and toys with Ana, if she's your permission to play. They would be in here, where you can see, Selene, while you and I talk together." She paused, nodding to a stool near her. "Please, sit."

"I'd rather not." Selene hitched Ana up a little on her hip, still watching the woman warily. "Why did they bring me here?"

"To protect you from my father and his Death Dealers. They would hunt you down if you were left unprotected." There's a troubled expression on the woman's face a moment before she gave Selene a faint smile. "And because I asked him to bring anyone who came onto our side of the river, who is not a vampire, to the fortress."

"Why? Who are you?"

"My name is Sonja." She shrugged, the smile on her face widening a moment. "They listen to me because I gave them freedom once, and because my son is all they have of the leader who died to ensure I escaped as well.


	2. No Roads

They need no roads, no tracks, nothing that humans would require, in order to travel; only their own paws and endurance as they patrol their kingdom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "road".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [The Ever-Changing Road](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/749674).


	3. Promise

"Leaving doesn't mean giving up." Ana slipped her hand into Alexej's as the small boat carrying them pulled away from the sun-drenched cove it had retrieved them from. The well-sealed boxes that carried Sonja and Selene had gone on another ship, with Raze and other lycans to protect them. "We'll come home eventually, and Victor won't be able to stop us then."

"I will, you mean." Alexej tightened his grip on her hand almost painfully. "Your aunt won't risk you." The words had more than one meaning, and Ana disliked the one unspoken more than the other.

"My aunt isn't here, and she can't chose for me." Ana squeezed back as tightly as her human strength will allow, impulse and long-held conviction fueling her. She'd argued often with Selene about the direction her life would take, Selene wishing that she remained human rather than risk death in the change, but she won't let her aunt's fear rule her life. "I made my decision years ago. All that remains is fulfilling that promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "cove".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Ocean's Edge](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/749690).


	4. Not Your Last

The rain is cold as it pours down on her, washing blood from her face, and from her hands. Ana smiles, lifting her hands toward the sky to better allow them to be cleansed.

Arms wrap around her, and she laughs, tilting her head back to lean against Alexej's shoulder. He presses his lips against her neck, a smile curving them as he holds onto her, arms tight as iron bands around her. Her aunt will be appalled by what she has done, but Selene isn't here to disapprove right now, and she cannot regret her choices.

"Leave them, love," Alexej whispers in her ear, tightening his grip on her. "We can't stay here too long. Not if we're to find him."

"I know." Ana lowers her arms, resting her hands on top of Alexej's arms a moment before she twists, turning her head to meet his gaze. "But it feels so good to bring them down, these creatures who destroyed my family and tore yours apart."

Alexej chuckles and grins. "There are probably more of them between us and father. These don't have to be your last kills."

"No." Ana returns his grin with a fierce smile of her own. "Only my first."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "rain".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [A Misty Veil](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1276502).


	5. Broken Locks

It is always dark in his prison, but Lucian doesn't care. All that matters is that his Sonja is still alive and free - she must be, or Viktor would have him killed. She is alive, and their child lives, and they are not held under Viktor's cruel tyranny, even if it means he will never see them again.

He doesn't know how long it has been since he was locked away, with only Viktor's sporadic company to keep him from going entirely mad, before he first sees daylight again. When a man - not a vampire, nor a lycan, but something different from both - breaks the locks of his prison, and takes him from it.

Alexej, the man calls himself, and the woman who meets them outside is Ana. Both of them something between vampire and lycan, and perhaps greater than either. They take him to a comfortably furnished house, with thick walls that would do a fortress proud, and provide him with food, clean clothes, and a chance to bathe for the first time in an unknowable period.

There are strange things in the house - a bath that fills from a tap in the wall with water already hot, lights that need no flame to provide as much light as the sun. Even the blood that he drinks is strange, not coming from cattle or humans, but from a bag of some sort, kept in a box that is cold to the touch, and warmed in another box that glows and hums.

Alexej tells him that they will rest here for a while, but then they must travel on, so they are not caught so near to Viktor's domain. Doing so is yet another change from what Lucian recalls of the world, taking a carriage that is pulled not by horses, but by some machine. Through the day, and a night, and another day, stepping off it as night falls in some city that echoes with noises he cannot name, and smells of humans and all that comes with them.

None of that matters, compared to the vision that greets him, the face he's seen too often in the dark of his prison when she's not been there. His Sonja, who looks paler even than a vampire should when she sees him. Sonja, who Alexej calls mother, and who she greets with a relief that Lucian can feel.

They travel in another carriage that needs no horses, with Raze and a pale woman who is called Selene, to a house that looks to be as much fortress as home, outside the city. A place where he can rest, and he can learn all that he's missed in the centuries since Viktor determined to use him to bring Sonja to heel. In the company of his beloved, of his son and his son's wife, and some few others who will not leave them without defenders. He is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "dark".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Not Always the Absence of Light](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/951873).


	6. Inheritance

Wind howls down the mountain valley where she has made her fortress, and beats against the stone walls of her citadel. Sometimes Sonja imagines she can hear Lucian's screams on it, and she shivers and hides in her rooms, well-built and lined with tapestries to keep the drafts out. She will live and she will thrive, and she will build an empire with the lycans to rival her father's, so her son has an inheritance greater than a broken mother and a dead father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "wind".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Sky-Song](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1471349).


	7. Beloved Protector

The woods are thick with undergrowth around the house that he has lived in for the last several months, and Lucian explores them while Sonja sleeps. Patrolling to protect his beloved, sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of Raze or of Alexej or Ana. There are others who live in the home, lycans who think of him as a legend, but they are too much in awe of him to prowl the daylight with him. They revere him, and Lucian finds it amusing - and to his advantage, as they will listen to him above others, even the handful of vampires that they guard.

Though he has no intention of leaving those vampires - his Sonja, Ana's aunt Selene, a few youngsters turned in the centuries since he had been sealed away - unguarded during the daylight. Viktor is not above using humans to do his dirty work, the same as he demanded tribute from the human lords whose lands surrounded his own holdings, and Lucian will not have them gain a hold of his family, nor Viktor a hold upon him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "tree".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Branching From the Center](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1539051).


	8. Waiting Game

Viktor is furious when he finds out Lucian is missing from the cage he'd had been imprisoned in for the last six hundred years. He takes it out on the guards who survived, and on the few lycans that had remained in his employ - he assumes they had found a way to free Lucian, and they've been working for Sonja all these centuries.

The cameras in the modern mansion built atop the prison reveal a more dangerous and terrible truth; a man and a woman who work in tandem like they've been doing so for centuries. Viktor recognizes an escaped girl in the woman's face, and Lucian in the man's, and his rage grows. The tainted creature that his daughter bore to the lycan, who has clearly passed his foul gift on to another - one who'd been raised on tales of the evils of vampires, no doubt, by the lycans who had rebelled and given Sonja shelter.

Amelia and Marcus are the only ones safe, in their long sleep in the vault that underlies another part of the mansion, though Viktor wants to wring Amelia's neck - it was on her watch that this happened, and she'd spent it across the ocean, too far away to do anything to prevent the carnage. The others, though, have to listen to his cold lectures on thier failures, are pushed to hunt lycans who remain within the reach of their home, and if truly unlucky, die to soothe his wrath.

Tales of his actions reach the fortified home of his daughter, borne by vampires who'd rather submit to their enemy than die at the hands of their leader. She protects those who come to her, but she will not confront her father, not yet. It is a waiting game between them now, to see who will break first, and bring the fight to the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "Missing".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [All of a Question](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1680257).


	9. First Change

Clouds obscure the full moon, but do not blunt its power. Lucian watches the boy - a young man by human reckoning, but younger by centuries than anyone else in his Sonja's household - as he shifts, screams muffled by the thick glass and heavy walls. Selene had brought him back, after he'd been attacked by lycans still loyal to Viktor, bound and enslaved and unwilling to shed their servitude. Here, the boy wouldn't be forced into the life of a forced guardian, but he still must suffer through the change.

Lucian turns away once the change is complete, leaving a lycan panting on the floor of the other room. Others will keep the boy company, but Lucian would not have anyone else stand watch while the boy suffered his first change. The lycans are made from his blood, ultimately, and they are his charges, no matter how long he's been denied the right to watch over their care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "Cloud".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Storms and Sunsets](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1848918).

**Author's Note:**

> **OCs for this story/AU:**
> 
>  
> 
> Ana and Alexej - Underworld OCs; Ana is one of Selene's nieces, and Alexej is the son of Lucian and Sonja.


End file.
